


Bring It Back, Bring It Back

by SegaBarrett



Category: Chess - Rice/Ulvaeus/Andersson
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 05:21:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18004595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: Florence and Freddie reflect together.





	Bring It Back, Bring It Back

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Chess.
> 
> A/N: Title from "Love of My Life", by Queen.

Frederick Trumper contemplated the meaning of the word “alone”.

It wasn’t as if it was a new word, or a new feeling even. He had been alone ever since he was nine years old and he had discovered that the only one left for him to count on was himself and those sixty-four squares laid out before him.

But then there had been Florence, gentle Florence with her smiles and her soothing voice and the way that she would bite her lip just before she made a move that would blow Freddie’s mind. 

Alone meant the feeling of never seeing Florence again.

Anatoly had flown back to Russia to be a Soviet again, to live with his wife again, and he had left Florence in the lurch.  
She was feeling alone, too. But the definition of it didn’t involve Freddie. That much he knew. He was yesterday’s news and he just needed to accept that already.

So why was he stepping ever closer, waiting until Anatoly’s plane was only a series of marks against the sky, and putting his hand over Florence’s shoulder, trying to pull her in against him?

There was no way it could end well.

To Freddie’s surprise, Florence leaned into his touch, shaking with not-quite sobs, the kind that people give when they ran out of tears a long time ago. Freddie knew the type. The kind that people got when it was like steel straight into the heart that couldn’t be repaired.

“Florence,” he said quietly. “Let’s go home.”

She pushed back a moment and stared at him.

“Where in the world is home, Freddie?”

He didn’t know. But he nodded, like he had an idea.

Like he would take her there. Like he was still ten moves ahead even though he was playing it all by ear.

***

“Writing a book? Really, Freddie? I wouldn’t have thought.”

Florence stood over him, leaning in as Freddie tapped away at the keyboard of the computer, jabbing out yet another paragraph.

“People want to hear my story, Florence. Who am I to deny the people what they want?”

“You, considering you haven’t played a chess game in the last ten years.”

“Twelve. It’s been twelve. And the people want to know what I have been up to. They tell me this book could make me millions of dollars.”

“To do what with?”

Freddie looked at her.

“Well, to have. Millions of dollars!”

“Freddie, I will help you with this. Because, trust me, looking at the way you write, you can really use it. But what do you need the money for? You realize that if you write this book… You’re agreeing to tell people anything they want to know. And it’s hard for you to even answer questions at a press conference without losing your cool.”

“That was twelve years ago, Florence.”

“And have you gotten better since then, or worse? That’s what they will want to know…”

Freddie sucked his teeth. 

“Why is that what they will want to know? Boring stuff about my personal life? That’s why I won’t ever understand the public. I could tell them about every single game I ever won, but what they would want to know is how I celebrate my birthdays…”

“With me,” Florence pointed out.

“Where I get my hair cut,” he continued.

“I do it, but only if I catch you early in the morning before you start throwing a tantrum about something else.”

“Whether I have a girlfriend…”

“I’ve set you up with two women and four men and you have scared off each one of them.”

“Florence, you aren’t helping.”

Freddie began to absentmindedly play with the radio that was set to the side next to him. 

_“Love of my life, you’ve hurt me…  
You’ve stolen my heart, and now you leave me…”_

Freddie smirked at it.

“Another Freddie,” Florence mused. “I could have made a better choice and ended up managing that one.”

“I don’t think he’s any good at chess,” Freddie shot back, “Musicians never are. You can only be good at one thing, just focus on that one thing above all else. If you want to be truly good.” 

“And Freddie, what did you miss out on by being so good at chess? I mean… where are you right now?”

Florence figured she could ask herself the same question. She was unmarried, no children, no prospects other than tending to Freddie or waiting for the day Anatoly floated back to her somehow, when the Iron Curtain came down. And what then, to close her eyes like she hadn’t met his wife and seen his children?

No, that was no way to live. But here didn’t seem to be any other answer. 

“I’m here with you… Safe.”

She shook her head. 

“I’m the love of your life?” she quipped. But even as the words came out of her mouth, she thought about it.

***

He carried himself with a confidence that made him look a little more like a rock star than a chess player, chess board tucked under his arm and glaring at everyone else in the chess club like he was willing to fight them if it came to that.

Florence was not used to frequenting chess clubs, not since she had come over to America from England – always going from place to place and never staying anywhere long enough to belong there for good. She was sure that she would be turned away at the door, and she had gotten more than a few odd looks. 

They probably think I’m in here to pick up my father or my boyfriend, she mused bitterly. They can’t possibly take me seriously.

She knew she was good, and she knew that the chess club was one of the best places to show it. But who would even play against her, out of fear of losing to “some woman” and feeling humiliated over it?

“New here?” a voice cut in. 

She whirled around and looked at him. This man had swagger that would make Elvis look like he was unsure of himself. It was an odd thing to see; everyone else in the club looked at least forty years older than either one of them.

“First day,” she replied, giving a little wave and rocking back and forth on her heels. Why had she decided high heels were a good fit for a chess club, anyway? “So do you want to play chess, or not?” She couldn’t get over the way he was looking at her, like he was sizing her up.

“I’ll grab us a table,” the man shot back, pulling out a chair and jerking his finger towards it. Florence wasn’t sure if he was trying to be a gentleman or just annoyed that she wasn’t sitting down fast enough so he could show his prowess.

It wasn’t as easy as he probably thought it would be. She could see the sweat building across his brow, the way his hands twitched a little as he moved the pieces. The way he leaned back and forth in his chair sometimes as if he was plotting an escape.

By the time he boxed her into a corner from which she could only accept his triumphant “Checkmate,” it looked as if he had worn holes in the carpet with the constant pacing of his feet.

She liked him.

“What is it that you do?” he asked her a second later, and she came up with something vague. Her job was not exciting or glamorous or anything that she planned to fall back on – she tutored at a writing center, pouring over ill-written essays. It paid the bills but was not the stuff dreams were made of. It wasn’t like being here, the board taking over her eyes and heart.

“I could ask you the same thing,” she fired back. “Do you just play chess all the time?”

“What would be the point of anything else?” he retorted, but she saw in his eyes the look of one who would do anything to get to the top, even if that “anything” included bagging groceries.

***

“How did you get started playing chess?” Florence asked, typing as she spoke.

“You know the answer to that,” Freddie told her, “I just picked it up one day. A set, in a thrift store.” There was an uneasy edge to his voice, even now.

“And what drew you to it?”

“You know the answer.” She paused. It sounded as if Freddie was about to cry. That wasn’t what she wanted; that was never what she wanted. She had only wanted to protect him, the way no one had ever been there to protect her. It could be exhausting some days, but for the longest time it had felt like she had achieved some monumental task just by keeping him alive so he could play his next match, so that he could win and be happy so briefly.

Did that make her the love of his life?

“I do know the answer,” Florence said quietly. “But they’re going to want to know these kinds of things. If you’re not ready… then maybe it isn’t the right time to write a book. What if you just wrote about some of your chess games? It might not be as…”

“You think I can’t face all of this?” Freddie stood up and rounded on her, hands plastered to his hips. She had to laugh. The old Freddie, eternally. 

_“Don’t take it away from me… because you don’t know what it means to me.”_

Florence couldn’t help but think about a book about Freddie in the hands of people walking by on the street. It would almost be as if their hands were all over him, claiming him, knowing things that only she knew. Things that only she should know.

Why was she choosing now to be proprietary about this man, the way she had scowled when he had attempted to be proprietary over her?

“I know that you can. I just don’t know if now is the time… is this still the same song that was playing before?”

“It is…” Freddie looked up at her. “If now isn’t the time… then when will it be the time? I could be dead tomorrow.”

“You won’t be dead tomorrow.”

“Statistically, I could be dead tomorrow.”

Florence laid her head on Freddie’s shoulder and sighed.

“Well… If you die tomorrow… then I’ll accept that I’m the love of your life.”


End file.
